Water Security Assessment: Integrating Governance and Freshwater Indicators

A new approach is developed for assessing water security status: the Water Security Status Indicators (WSSI) assessment method. The WSSI has four innovative aspects which address important gaps in the literature. First, it was developed in cooperation with end-users, whose participation enabled the design of a user-friendly assessment method. Second, this method is designed to be implemented at the local scale (small scale watershed or sub-watershed). Third, the WSSI is multivariate: it integrates variables pertaining to water quality and water quantity as they relate to aquatic ecosystems and human health. Fourth, the method provides concrete outputs for incorporation into water decision-making processes. In this paper, we document the WSSI assessment method and its application in a community in British Columbia (Canada), including the incorporation of community input into the development and application of the WSSI, and the integration of WSSI results into community water governance.     

Regional Water Demand Forecasting in Canada

ABSRTACT

This paper highlights the regional variation in total hardness, electrical conductivity, potential salinity and saturation index of groundwater in Nigeria. The total hardness ranges from 25 ppm to 200 ppm increasing from south to north of the country. The electrical conductivity ranges from 10 to 1,000 μUmhos/cm while the potential salinity is generally less than 3, hence a wide range of crops ranging from tolerant to semi tolerant can be grown in Nigeria. The saturation index of Nigerian groundwater ranges from -5 to 4.5.     

Implementation of GIS-Based Applications in Water Governance

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are computer programs that are able to bring large amounts of data of both the physical and the social system together in one comprehensive overview shown digitally. GIS occurred very rapidly on the Dutch policy agenda. In this paper we analyze how the fast introduction process of GIS-based instruments in water management and more specifically in river flood management can be explained. By applying a range of classical models on agenda-setting, we show the important contribution of GIS to the water and flood issue in current spatial planning and policy development in the Netherlands.     

Water Governance 2.0: A Review and Second Generation Research Agenda

Water scholars and practitioners generally agree that improving water governance is the key to addressing water insecurity in developing countries. We review the literature on water governance and argue for a second-generation research agenda, which pays more attention to the study of incentive structures, is multi and inter-disciplinary in orientation and with clear policy implications. We then illustrate how theories drawn from public economics, new institutional economics, political economy and public administration can help diagnose the challenges of integrated water resources management, improving efficiency of water utilities, privatization of utilities and public-private partnerships, water pricing reforms, virtual waters/water trading, among others. We conclude that these tools can help advance the second-generation research agenda on water governance.     

水利科技创新

加强科技创新是实现水利现代化的根本保障。针对水利现代化的目标，讨论了水利创新的原则，探讨了水利科技创新的若干方向以及讨论了科技创新的环境问题。     

Accountability and Rights in Right-based Approaches for Local Water Governance

This paper explores local rights and accountability in local water resource management. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and government agencies have an important role and responsibility to create an environment in which people can assume accountability and have a greater chance to get their rights to water fulfilled. A framework of research questions is proposed within a Right-based Approaches (RBA) framework. Answers to these questions could contribute to the policy responses necessary to ensure that rights of the underprivileged groups in particular in local communities are fulfilled and that they can assume their own share of accountability for the good use of available water resources.     

水利创新的方向

2006年,我国报刊上最流行的词,可能是创新. 水利工作人员考虑最多的,可能是水利创新. 如何推动创新?我认为:创新的基本动力是人类或人民的需求.自主创新就是运用自己的优势,想出最好的方法,解决自己的问题.一个新的理念必将带动一次创新的浪潮,新的理念也只有依靠创新才能实现.创新包括体制机制创新和科技创新,两者相辅相成.     

Equitable Gender Participation in Local Water Governance: An Insight into Institutional Paradoxes

The participation of local stakeholders in governance of water resources is regarded as inalienable for ensuring efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability. To enhance gender balance in the water governance process, institutions are being designed and executed globally to elicit enhanced participation of women. This paper contends that in the context of local communities, the new institutional framework is divorced from the traditional social institutions that in turn operationalize their resource management systems. Based upon empirical evidence from rural Indian setting, the paper deciphers the paradoxes between the two sets of institutional paradigms and illustrates how these paradoxes at the ‘interface’ between the local community context and the development strategy lead to problems with effective women’s participation. On the basis of the findings, it argues that the institutional paradigm for achieving equitable gender participation in local water governance does not represent a truly ‘bottom-up’ approach. It further raises the concern that if the institutional paradigm for participation is contradictory to local institutions, then how can the objectives of participation founded thereupon be seen as achievable? The paper proposes the need to design participatory paradigms that are more realistically rooted in community-based institutional frameworks so as to enhance effectiveness of the endeavors.     

An Evolutionary Perspective on Water Governance: From Understanding to Transformation

Many water related problems can be attributed to governance failure at multiple levels of governance rather than to the resource base itself. At the same time our knowledge on water governance systems and conditions for success of water governance reform is still quite limited. Water governance is a fast growing field of scholarly expertise which has largely developed over the past 10 to 15 years. This paper summarizes the development of the field over the past decade(s). On one hand it addresses the current state of understanding of factors that determine the success of water governance systems. On the other hand it has a strong emphasis on processes of transformation and change in water governance as governing the transformation of water governance is the key challenge in moving towards more sustainable water governance and management.     

A Comparative Analysis of Water Governance,Water Management,and Environmental Performance in River Basins

River ecosystems are facing a diversity of threats in many parts of the world. To restore and preserve riverine environments, human societies have established water governance and management responses. However, the means by which a satisfactory environmental state can be achieved in light of different regional contexts is still poorly understood. This article explores whether or not good environmental performance can be achieved through water governance and management in combination with further context factors. To this end, we applied fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to examine data on water governance, water management, and environmental performance from a recent international study together with context data on per capita income, corruption, hydro-climate, and use pressure from other datasets. Results demonstrate that the combination of polycentric governance, high per capita income, and low levels of corruption is sufficient for achieving good water management practice. However, a good environmental state in river basins seems to primarily depend upon the overall level of pressure from human use rather than the quality of water management. This demonstrates that water governance and management should be seen as part of a broader societal transformation towards sustainability that focusses on a reduction of pressures in river basins instead of mitigating their impacts.     

Boundary Judgments in Water Governance: Diagnosing Internal and External Factors that Matter in a Complex World

Governance failures are widely recognized as a key reason why, despite sustained attention over previous decades, many longstanding water problems continue to go unsolved around the world. A major challenge in analyzing and addressing water governance problems is making “boundary judgments” in the face of complexity. Improving water governance requires accounting for a diverse and sometimes unclear set of internal and external factors that cause water problems. For example, drivers, actors, and institutions implicated may be both “internal” or “external” to a water governance system, depending on how problem boundaries are delineated. This problem confronts researchers and practitioners alike, and although recognition is growing, it remains extremely challenging to practically address. Diagnostic approaches are needed to deal with the complexity of contemporary water governance problems. In this paper, we propose a practical diagnostic approach to support structured, context-specific, critical diagnostic inquiry. We build on complementary initiatives emerging in other fields, paying particular attention to external factors that are often neglected, while being sensitive to the capacity constraints of policymakers and practitioners. The approach is flexible in allowing for either cursory or in-depth analysis as appropriate in a given situation. This allows for the identification of tangible improvements and “small wins” to improve water governance systems within a bigger-picture perspective of the diverse causes of water governance problems. Innovatively, we take a user-oriented perspective to support researchers and policymakers in practice, and break new ground in providing tractable tools for dealing with complexity in water governance.     

格尔木市取水管理制度发展演变及其与水权制度关系分析

取水许可是目前中国水资源管理的主要落实手段。取水许可制度的实际运行情况是未来水权制度建设的基础。以格尔木市为典型,分析了取水管理的发展演变历程：工程管理阶段、城市部门主管阶段、水利部门主管阶段和取水许可初步完善阶段。目前面临的主要问题是已有的取水许可制度与正在建设的水权制度的冲突：取水许可属于行政管理行为,而水权属于产权。取水许可可以根据政府政策进行调整,而水权必须作为财产,根据民法来切实保护,不能由政府随意变动或剥夺。水权初始分配可以继承过去的取水许可作为初始水权,但取水许可制度代替不了水权制度,而必须为水权制度让路。     

The Participatory Regime of Water Governance in the Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

Transparency and public participation are important ingredients to achieve effective water governance. Since the Rio Conference, diverse international instruments advocate access to information and public participation in river basin management. At the European Union level, the Water Framework Directive (WFD) establishes specific obligations for member states to include the public in the planning and management of river basins processes. In addition, the WFD Guideline on Public Participation includes three forms of public participation: active involvement, consultation, and provision of information. At the present moment, Spain has a legal and institutional framework that allows a very limited participatory process: only water users holding an economic stake can participate in the management of Spanish river basins. Concerning transparency, the law establishes the right to accede to information but this right has two different levels: for the general public and for water users. In the Iberian shared river basins regulated by the 1998 Luso-Spanish Convention, mechanisms allowing public participation in the terms of the WFD are not in place yet. It is necessary to reform the legal and institutional framework to facilitate real participation and to achieve effective water governance.     

河道治理水土保持策略分析

新野礓石河王集段河道治理工程具有建设规模大、建设周期长等特点,期间在施工建设的过程中,涉及诸多建筑主体工程施工等内容,受当地的自然条件影响,很容易造成严重的水土流失,从而为周边生态环境埋下了严重的安全隐患.基于此,必须要对河道加强治理工作,围绕治理工程实际内容,落实水土保持措施,从而能够有效解决水土流失问题,更好地保护...     

Developing Purposeful and Adaptive Institutions for Effective Environmental Water Governance

Refashioning the institutions we use to manage and allocate water resources so as to provide for environmental water requirements has been a major element of the National Water Reform agenda in Australia since 1994, and represents a very significant potential innovation in the way water resources are managed. This essay addresses three central components of this institutional innovation: processes to reach an ecologically sustainable allocation of water resources; instruments to provide for and protect environmental water; and the development of management frameworks for rivers with environmental water regimes. The discussion explores the considerable constraints encountered in achieving institutions for effective environmental water allocation in the context of the Murray-Darling Basin, the major river basin in south-eastern Australia. Central to this discussion are fundamental questions of governance: who makes substantive decisions on water allocation and management; on what basis and for what purpose? What tools are developing to move towards desired outcomes? How effective are they within the broader institutional context? Given the incremental and, in many cases, ineffective implementation of environmental reform measures to date; and the additional uncertainties, complexities and urgencies posed by climate scenarios; this essay argues for a re-orientation of the policy agenda and its implementation, towards a more purposeful and adaptive governance model.     

Erratum to: An Evolutionary Perspective on Water Governance: From Understanding to Transformation

Water Resources Management -     

Relaxing the Principle of Prior Appropriation: Stored Water and Sharing the Shortage in Alberta,Canada

Prior appropriation (allocation), ‘first-in-time is first-in-right’, provides a dominant water policy in western North America and some other regions world-wide. Concerns with this chronological prioritization arose during the Canadian Oldman River Dam project, since anticipated water for environmental flows and an indigenous group would have been unreliable with junior licenses. It was considered that in Alberta prior allocation applies only to the natural flow and water captured in a reservoir during surplus is not later bound by license seniority. Consequently, the Oldman Dam operation ensures minimal environmental flows and thereafter, ‘sharing the shortage’ is applied, with licensees receiving partial allotments during shortages. A related test-case for adjacent rivers with publicly-funded reservoirs accompanied a water shortage in 2001. It was considered unacceptable to cut-off water to a food-processing plant, a town, and water co-operatives with recent licenses, and consequently irrigation districts and others agreed to share the shortage, with all receiving 60% allotments. Following success, water sharing was also approved for 2002 and 2007. The discretionary use of stored water and sharing the shortage represent ‘equitable allocation’, an alternative to prior appropriation, which may benefit other jurisdictions facing water shortages.